Reid ridicules stances of … Sen. Harry Reid

In Frank Herbert's classic series of science fiction novels about the desert planet "Dune," characters who were killed off in earlier books have a habit of re-appearing.

The author explains that these are "ghola" -- identical duplicates grown from samples of the original person's genetic material in axlotl tanks (whatever those are).

Now, no one is contending our current Senate majority leader was grown in a vat. But when the campaign of the 2010 version of U.S. Sen. Harry Reid criticizes as wacky, far out and frightening the Republican positions that curiously resemble the positions of an earlier Harry Reid who Nevadans repeatedly elected to the U.S. Senate, residents of the Silver State can surely be excused for scratching their heads and wondering where the current model -- Harry 102? Harry 103? -- came from.

When Harry Reid became Senate Democratic leader in 2004, the devout Mormon promptly set up a faith-based website to court religious voters away from the camp of Republican George W. Bush. Sen. Reid used the site, called "A word to the faithful," to quote churchmen to the effect that the Bible instructs Christians to help the poor through massive, tax-funded government programs.

(We remember the "help the poor" part.)

Yet the Reid camp has repeatedly ridiculed his current Republican challenger, Sharron Angle, for saying she feels called by God to replace Sen. Reid (and his current, far-left policies) in Washington, saving its harshest criticism for her comments that those expanding federal welfare programs to supplant traditional private charities seek "to make government our God," that "We have become a country entrenched in idolatry, and that idolatry is dependence on the federal government."

So it was OK for the 2004 incarnation of Sen. Reid to cite religious authority (whether accurately or not) to justify a massive bureaucracy that's fast bankrupting the country -- but it's now weird and unacceptable for his opponent to explain how her own religious views bring her to an opposite view?

Even stranger is the condemnation by Sen. Reid of current suggestions by some Washington Republicans that we should restrict the doctrine of birthright citizenship, which allows the children of illegal immigrants to become instant "anchor babies."

"They've either taken leave of their senses or their principles," says Sen. Reid of Republicans seeking to clarify the 14th Amendment, originally intended only to guarantee citizenship to freed slaves.

Surely, then, our Sen. Reid (2010 incarnation) would condemn as insanely racist a bill introduced to the Senate Judiciary Committee as the Immigration Stabilization Act of 1993 (S.1351), stipulating, "The Congress has determined and hereby declares that any person born after the date of enactment of this title to a mother who is neither a citizen of the United States nor admitted to the United States as a lawful permanent resident ... shall be considered as born subject to the jurisdiction of that foreign country and not subject to the jurisdiction of the United States ... and shall therefore not be a citizen of the United States or of any State solely by reason of physical presence within the United States at the moment of birth."

The author of that bill summarized it as "A bill to curb criminal activity by aliens, to defend against acts of international terrorism, to protect American workers from unfair labor competition, and to relieve pressure on public services by strengthening border security. ..."

Good heavens, what an insensitive brute. What a wacky, far-out conservative! Who introduced that bill, which died in committee back in 1993, and which the Center for Immigration Studies summarized at the time as including "a provision that would limit citizenship to those whose mothers are United States citizens or legal permanent residents"?

Actually, that bill was introduced by Sen. Harry Reid.

Hope they saved some of his genetic material.